Chapter 7

“Well, your idea of a business lunch is intense,” Hyun said, letting rip a loud belch. People walking ahead of them looked back in wonder.

“Hey, we’re trying to stay lowkey and anonymous,” Mikel said. “Mama D’s was not my first choice when I woke up this morning, but not only does she have eyes and ears surrounding her in layers, there is no signal in that room. You can’t call 9-1-1 from there.”

“So the A.I. ‘s could not trace us to that location,” Hyun said.

“Yep, better than the holding cells at Fed Central where they wanted to park me,” Mikel said. “Are you ready to report to Ned that you have corroborating sources?”

“No,” Hyun said. “Travel offices blowing up after we leave are not corroboration and can easily be dismissed as coincidence. By the way, what was in the envelope she gave you?”

“Huh. I forgot to look after merely escaping a targeted bombing by coincidence and running for my frickin’ life. Then Mama D dropped her political discourse on us, and my brain sauntered over to the proverbial punch bowl. Where can we find some more privacy?”

“We can try the Cantonese Cultural Center,” Hyun said. “We’ve been paranoid for generations that the Chinese Communist Party was tracking us. There are private rooms there for those who prove they are from Canton.”

“You can?”

“Mother was most insistent that we learn the mother tongue and not the Mandarin that most Chinese private schools provide,” Hyun said. “I went to public school in the morning, Cantonese school in the late afternoon, and did homework all evening. I did not have an exciting childhood.”

“Here I thought you were a wild child of the streets,” Mikel said. “How do we get there from here?”

“If we don’t take the bus, we’ve got a long, long walk.”

Mikel made a guttural noise. “Buses have cameras, and we’re running around the city trying to stay anonymous. If we had wigs or something to disguise us better, maybe. Still, we’re running from A.I.’s and who knows if they have DNA sniffers or thermal bodyprint databases or something else Scifi. Here,” Mikel ordered, pushing her through a door to a staircase.

“Where is here?”

“Needle exchange clinic on the second floor,” Mikel said, tapping the label on the listings. “Complete anonymity by law.”

They stomped up the stairs. “You know this, how?”

“You were the one who ran the stats on drug use in our fair city and published the article on how the city is fudging the numbers to hide the breadth of the epidemic. I’m the one who took your numbers and wrote the 7000-word article for The National Conversation on the contradictory drug directives of the state and city agencies on drugs. I made a nice, tidy fee on that one.”

“You are not allowed under Ned’s rules,” Hyun said. Her anger was apparent.

“I am not allowed to write articles for other publications on personal relationships. Everything else is fair game because Ned excludes me from your side of the office. I know the rules and I like them.”

“Can I help you?” the woman across the desk asked.

“Reporters for City Week,” Mikel said. “Hyun wrote the piece on the city’s mercenary use of drug stats a few weeks ago. We wanted to follow up with some background.”

“You can’t talk to the clients,” she said, looking annoyed.

“Everything is background,” Hyun said, giving her the same look in return. “That means we cannot use names, locations, or any sort of identifying information. You’ll do; I don’t necessarily need to talk to clients.”

“I don’t have time for your shit,” she said. “Too many days and too many dollars short. Half the people who came through that door a year ago January are now dead. Not all of them died of drug overdoses either. They’re a vulnerable population.”

“You’re exactly what I need,” Hyun said. “Mind if I sit down?”

“I gotta pee,” Mikel said. “That way?”

The woman behind the desk nodded.

Mikel hastily closed the door and lifted the lid to the toilet. In an instant, his stomach purged his entire meal, leaving him vomiting with an aching jaw as the purge continued in unrelenting lurches of his gut. His throat was burning from the acid coming up. When the convulsions stopped, he leaned against the wall, wiping his mouth with his forearm. He flushed the toilet and washed his face, hands, and arms. “I can’t keep doing this shit to my body,” he said to no one.

He sat down on the closed toilet to rest a moment. Reaching into his bag, he retrieved the unopened envelope from the destroyed travel agency. Inside were two airline boarding passes with direct flights to Addis Ababa on a chartered airline. Also included was one train ticket from the city to Tannersville, a slow, slow local route that used freight tracks, which often delayed passenger service because of rights of way. Nestled between the paper tickets was a blank credit card, grey. Two tickets went one way, and one went another.

Confident that his stomach was empty, Mikel went back up front. Hyun had roped in another person, an older man with deep wrinkles across his face and rheumy eyes. Mikel decided it was the face of a man who had seen some shit in his time and lived to tell the tale to others. His arms were stringy.

“Mikel, go find a seat in the waiting room,” Hyun said. “We’re going to be a while.”

“You’re not one of us,” a drawn woman said as Mikel took a seat in the nearly empty room of mismatched chairs. He nodded at her as he settled back, trying to let the tension bleed out of his shoulders. His throat still burned when he swallowed.

“Of course not,” Mikel said. “Reporter duty,” he explained with a thumb over his shoulder pointing towards the door. “It’s not safe for an Asian woman to walk the streets unescorted these days.”

“Asian only, dumbass? No woman is safe alone on these streets in daylight. If the heat doesn’t lay you flat, the air will rip the lining out of your lungs, and while you lay there prostrate, some pervert is going to rape you while his buddy steals your stuff. After they leave, some nutjob with a gun is going to walk past, deciding to use a bullet to take out the trash.”

“Colorful,” Mikel admitted.

“Ripped from the headlines,” she said. “Nothing original. Same shit day in and day out while our politicians lie, the victims sigh, and the ultra-wealthy wave with their fingers as they say bye-bye.”

“A poet in the clinic,” Mikel said. “Today is full of surprises.”

“I have a PhD in comparative literature and the debt load to prove it,” she said. “I can sling words in five languages, making poetic prose across four continents. I cannot afford an apartment or clean panties. I’m only hanging around to see how this shitshow ends, then I will push that fatal overdose into my veins with my final words, ‘So long, suckers.’”

“Dark to be sure, and not quite as poetic as you led me to believe,” Mikel said. He lurched out of the uncomfortable chair and ambled over to the window. He watched the bustling traffic on the sidewalks as the buses and cars competed to maintain a forward motion on the asphalt. Looking across the street, he noticed several people pretending to be busy while they scanned the immediate area. He leaned back from the window.